


Lead Up the Garden Path

by luna_plath



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cross-Generation Relationship, Drabble, F/M, Ficathon, Harry Potter Next Generation, One Shot, Post - Deathly Hallows, Post-Canon, Teacher-Student Relationship, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 02:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2091633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna_plath/pseuds/luna_plath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s always more with Lily. Her want becomes more of a source of conflict between them, urging him to do more than he should.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lead Up the Garden Path

He thinks that it’s because she looks like Ginny, at first, when she walks through the door of his N.E.W.T. level herbology class. But that isn’t really true. There’s more of Harry in her than Neville wants to admit, in the pouty curve of her lips or the sharp expression in her eyes, and it reaches something in him that none of his other students, no matter how pretty or kind, ever have.

He’d fancied her mum when they were kids but Neville had always been too shy to really approach Ginny, too sure that he’d get turned down for one of her other boyfriends, or Harry. Even during his final year at school, when he and Ginny and Luna had been closer than ever, Harry had still been there, a phantom presence between them.

When Lily stays after class, first to ask a question and then just to talk, he feels Harry there as well, the prickle at the back of his neck more from shame than arousal. Lily is very interested in herbology, she informs him, and before Neville can stop himself he’s asking if she wants to spend some extra time in the greenhouses.

“I wouldn’t mind having an assistant,” he tells her, knowing this is exactly the sort of thing he should stay away from.

But then Lily smiles, so unaware of just how lovely she is, with something of both her parents in that expression, and, looking back, that is the moment he remembers. Just the sensation of Lily being pleased with him is enough to undo the many years of growth he’s gone through, slamming Neville back to the day in sixth year when he saw Harry and Ginny kissing by the lake, two people completely absorbed in each other. At that moment he’d wished so desperately that it could’ve been him, but even then he’d known that, for Ginny, it would always be Harry.

In Lily Luna there are no such demands. He smiles back at her in kind and tells her to come by the greenhouses once her lessons are over, trying not to step through the doorway he’s just opened.

\----

At first they carry on in the simple roles of a teacher and a student. For many weeks he ignores the curl in his gut when she bites her lip between her teeth, or the heady rush of longing when he sees her bent over the saplings their handling, or the pleasant tightness in his chest at her focused, sharp expression. Lily is very bright and Neville concedes himself with the fact that, even if he has these thoughts about his student, he is at least teaching her something. He only has to tell her once for Lily to remember his instructions and he feels a quiet sort of pride at how much she’s learned.

_You’re old enough to be her father_ , he reminds himself, but she doesn’t feel like any sort of daughter to Neville. He has no children and a wife he sees less than any married man would like. Lily begins to take up more space in world, brightening his afternoons and weekends, infecting him with her quick intelligence and her soft smile.

On one particular Sunday he forgets himself. They are sitting in the sweetgrass, a bed of soft stalks that obscures them from the view of the windows, taking a break in the sleepy interval of early afternoon. Neville hands her a flask of water that he’s brought with him, watching the pale line of her throat out of the corner of his eye, trying not to stare at the water that stains her lips. There’s a smudge of dirt on the edge of Lily’s cheek and before he can squash the impulse, he is reaching forward, brushing his thumb over the patch with Lily’s jaw in his hand.

His touch does not startle her. In fact, Lily remains still beneath his fingers, her brown eyes watching him. Neville means to apologize for touching her, but then she leans forward, the clean smell of her skin flooding him while she lightly presses her lips to his. In the sweetgrass with the weak autumn sun trickling through the greenhouse windows, he closes his eyes and parts his lips over hers, running his tongue along her lower lip, feeling Lily shiver when he brushes her hair behind her ear.

The kiss is slow and gentle, nothing more than his mouth on hers and the tangle of his fingers in her hair, but the contact is enough to make the muscles in his abdomen tighten, to make his limbs burn with the familiar tug of desire. Lily brings her arms around his neck and Neville places a hand along her back, feeling just how small she is. Her body is hot against his, her spine unconsciously arching toward him, but he pushes her no further. Neville simply holds her, brushing his tongue over Lily’s, knowing that even this restrained contact is unquestionably wrong.

\----

After that first kiss in the sweetgrass it’s nearly impossible to stop. Her afternoons with him become more about touching than herbology, but even then he is still teaching, showing Lily how to feel good whether she’s with him or just thinking of him while she’s alone. The first time Neville touches her breasts he wants to lay her down behind the shrubbery and teach her everything he knows, but he holds back no matter how much Lily sighs and tells him to do more.

It’s always more with Lily. Her want becomes more of a source of conflict between them, urging him to do more than he should. When she comes to him with contraception potion and an honest, true longing in her eyes he nearly fractures under her gaze. How many times has he thought of sleeping with her, wondered if she’s done this with other men or only wants it with him? Neville makes excuses, delays the inevitable, but after months of holding this last thing out of her grasp it is unexpectedly sprung upon him.

Like the first contact between them, Lily initiates, coming to his private quarters while the whole castle is sleeping. His heart leaps into his throat when he sees her there, so perfect in her white nightgown and pale blue dressing robe, more beautiful than he deserves. Neville sees something clutched in her hand, the same folded map that had belonged to Harry when they were in school. He lets her into his rooms with a wary glance toward the corridor, hoping that there is no one to see this, his heart in his throat like he is the teenager out after curfew.

Lily shrugs out of her dressing gown and her nightclothes, quickly pulling the white fabric over her head, her brown eyes piercing as she stands in front of him in her knickers. He lets out a low, quiet noise, but when she begins to reach for his clothes his hands close around her wrists, halting her movements. Neville presses his face into her hair, breathing in the scent of Lily—his Lily, he thinks, but she will never really belong to him. She will never be his daughter and, if he can help it, she’ll never be his lover either.

“I can’t,” he says, smiling sadly, cupping her cheek. His longing is practically a living thing inside him but Neville will not curb it with her. There is pain in her eyes, and he thinks that there probably is in his too, but Lily was never his to take.


End file.
